Libya Must Complete Reintegration Process

“They are armed I am not going to fight a losing battle and kill my men over a demolished shrine,” said Fawzi Abd al-’Aali, the former Libyan interior minister, before he “resigned” last August. He was referring to the armed Salafi groups that were accused of destroying Sufi shrines. One of the accused groups was the Ansar al-Shariah Brigade, which was quick to support the demolition, but denied any responsibility for it.

Ahmed Jibril, Libya’s deputy ambassador to London, has now accused the Brigade, headed by Muhammed Ali Al-Zahawy, of perpetrating the attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, which killed the American ambassador, Christopher Stevens, and three other U.S. personnel, as well as Libyan guards. Others have quickly embraced and promoted Jibril’s allegation. But the picture is more complex.

The Brigade denied responsibility in a written statement, as well as in a brief interview with its spokesperson, who at the time was in charge of guarding Al Jala Hospital in Benghazi. Like its statement on the destruction of Sufi shrines, it denied involvement in the attack on the U.S. Consulate, but stressed the gravity of the insult against the Prophet that putatively triggered it.